Glodok
Encyclopedia
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. The area is also known as Pecinan
Pecinan
Pecinans are areas in Indonesia that are densely populated by Chinese Indonesians. Until the 1930s the Chinese were kept in certain areas, creating Chinese parts of towns and cities in Java. Pecinan's are similar to the Jewish ghettoes in Europe and means Chinatown in English. One well-known...
or Chinatown since the Dutch colonial era, and is considered the biggest in Indonesia, as a majority of the traders in Glodok are of Chinese descent.
Nowadays, the area is known as one of the biggest center for electronics in Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
.
Toponomy
The word Glodok came from the Sundanese word "Golodog", meaning entrance to a house, as Sunda Kalapa (Jakarta) is the gateway to the ancient Sundanese Kingdom. It was also thought that the name came from the "grojok grojok" sound that the water makes coming out of a waterspout in the yard of the Cityhall (Stadhuis), now the Jakarta Museum. This waterspout was built in 1743 and was used for every day needs such as a watering hole for horses.Early
In Batavia (now JakartaJakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
), Dutch colonialism
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
created commercial opportunities which attracted immigrants from many areas of what is now Indonesia. This economic activity also lured thousands of Chinese people to Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
. Swift immigration challenged the city's limited infrastructure and created burdens on the city. Tensions grew as the colonial government tried to restrict Chinese migration through deportations.
Glodok and Jakarta Riots
On 9 October 1740, 5,000 Chinese were massacred and the following year, Chinese inhabitants were ghettoized in Glodok outside the city walls. In 1998, Glodok was badly scarred during rioting. Because some "PribumiPribumi
Native Indonesians are also known as Pribumi, literally meaning "sons of the soil", is a term that refers to a population group in Indonesia that shares a similar sociocultural heritage...
" Indonesians accused Chinese Indonesians of hoarding the nation's wealth, and because of the large concentration of Chinese Indonesians residing there, Glodok suffered severe violence during the Jakarta Riots of May 1998
Jakarta Riots of May 1998
The May 1998 Riots of Indonesia were incidents of mass violence that occurred throughout Indonesia, mainly in Medan in the province of North Sumatra , the capital city of Jakarta , and Surakarta in the province of Central Java...
.
Chinatown
As shopping center, most of the vendors in Glodok are ChineseChinese Indonesian
Chinese Indonesians, also called the Indonesian Chinese, are an overseas Chinese group whose ancestors emigrated from China to Indonesia, formerly a colony of the Netherlands known as the Dutch East Indies...
. Glodok is the biggest Chinatown
Chinatown
A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
area in Indonesia, and one of the biggest Chinatowns in the world. The Chinese came to Jakarta since the 17th century as traders and laborers. Most of them came from Fujian
Fujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
and Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
provinces in southern China. Centered on Pintu Besar Selatan Road, it has become a commercial hub for the relatively prosperous Chinese community. Assimilation between Chinese and pribumi made a language known as Betawi language
Betawi language
The Betawi language is the spoken language of the Betawi people in Jakarta, Indonesia. It is the native language of about 2,700,000 people . It is a Malay-based creole, and closely related to Malay language. Betawi vocabulary have large amount of Hokkien Chinese, Arabic, and Dutch loanwords...
. Administratively, the area is a kelurahan
Village (Indonesia)
An administrative village is the lowest level of government administration in Indonesia. It could be a village or a kelurahan. A village is headed by a village chief , which is elected by popular vote. A kelurahan is headed by a lurah....
under the Taman Sari subdistrict, West Jakarta
West Jakarta
West Jakarta is a city within Jakarta Special District, Indonesia. It had a p[opulation of 2,278,825 at the 2010 Census; the administrative centre is at Puri Kembangan....
.
In 2006, prohibitions against Falun Gong
Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi, through public lectures. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy...
and any activities thereof were posted in Glodok. The government declared it a priority to ensure the safety of the Glodok area against any kind of Falun Gong activities, which it ironically associates with the Chinese state and communism.
Shopping
Glodok and contiguos of Mangga Dua are one of the biggest shopping centre in southeast Asia. It streches from Pancoran street to Gunung Sahari street and has approximately 500,000 m2 of shopping centres. Beside sale of electronic consumer goods, Glodok is the biggest market for CD and DVD cassettes.List of Shopping Centre
- Harco Glodok
- Orion Plaza
- Glodok Jaya
- Glodok Makmur
- Glodok Brustru
- Metro Glodok
- Hwi Lindeteves
- Lindeteves Trade Centre
- Pasar Pagi market
Transportation
There are many bus services provided by TransJakarta, PPD, Mayasari Bakti, and city transport. TransJakarta stops at Glodok bus stop. Visitors can also travel to Glodok by taxi and KRL JabotabekKRL Jabotabek
KRL Commuter Jabodetabek or simply KRL Jabodetabek is a mass rapid transit system in Jabodetabek, Indonesia. It is an acronym for Kereta Rel Listrik Jakarta Bogor Depok Tangerang Bekasi which can be loosely translated into Jabodetabek electrified rail. KRL Jabodetabek serves commuters in Jakarta,...
. It stops at Jakarta Kota Station
Jakarta Kota Station
Jakarta Kota Station is a terminal train station, located in the old city core of Jakarta. The station was appointed as a historical and cultural landmark in 1993....
, 200 metres north of the market. Bicycle or Ojek Sepeda is also common transport in Glodok.